I try to explain

Chiangmaifalcon,

After a restful night's sleep, I see the discussion is still going on.

I am perhaps one of the few people here willing to take you and your communications at face value, and engage in two-way conversation with you, instead of trying to score points off you or otherwise ridicule you.

From the beginning, after reading the title "I try to explain," I thought your hope for this thread was probably doomed to failure. From my observations of similar kicking and scuffling on many different forums, I have finally concluded that it is impossible to ever get one's point across and explain one's self once a set of adversarial opinions has formed up.

Adversaries simply don't relent, and I think you are learning the same thing here in the course of this and your previous posts. I would suggest that you give up any hope of people viewing you differenly than they have already decided to. Further words won't get you any further; certainly, don't expect civility or normal face-to-face conversational politeness anywhere on the Internet, here included.

Perhaps, you have gulled me and are snickering at me. I don't much care. I know others here are laughing out loud that I address you seriously. I don't much care about that either. I can form my own opinions about yourself and others here and I can live with my own thoughts without exposing them to the whole forum for review.

So I hope you have success in whatever your purposes are, and can run into a congenial group of people somewhere. I think it would be a shame for you to be banned, but web dynamics are what they are.

Good luck,
And have a good day,

Thank you Peder. I do understand what you are saying. Although I do not know what "gulled" means. You are no doubt better educated than me. Since you are being honest and forthright here, I will try to do same. People do not know me on forum. Just as I do not know anyone else. They know chiangmaifalcon, which is an internet creation existing only in cyberspace. Same thing with dude, or aquablue, or whoever. Therefore I do not take this stuff personally. The other thing is, though I am not proud of this, the fact is that I like to fight. I wish this were not so, but I am who I am. I do not mean my internet self, but my real self also. I have spent my life in martial arts and in military and other government work which sometimes involved violence. I am older now and broken down and so I fight with words on internet. These forum arguments help to keep my mind functioning and if everyone agreed with me I would find it boring. One member of this called me scum, which I thought is against forum rules and I will not lower myself to her level and therefore they are not worthy opponent and not worth wasting time communicating with as they are like someone who comes to a gunfight with no guns. However there are other people who, although their opinion differs from mine, they can argue intelligently and I will consider their opinion. I meant what I said about my life experience being different than mine, and so maybe we will never understand each other. When someone calls me names it means that in this contest, I won, as they are admitting they cannot compete on an intellectual level. When I got banned I figured the same thing. To me, if I am banned then the banners, or whatever, are admitting they cannot compete and so they give up.
It is perhaps difficult for people in the normal world to believe that people such as myself do exist in the real world, not just in the novels they read. It would be very dangerous for me to divulge my true identity and whereabouts. This will seem melodramatic to some people, but they should realize that the world is a dangerous place. I am not unique. There are thousands of people engaged in fighting terrorism every day. I myself am no longer one of them, but I was. Some people do not forget this. This false identity thing is not some silly game to fool people. It is a matter of survival.
I no longer work in counter-terrorism, but I do currently work to combat the trafficking of children and I am not paid for this but it is also an activity which could be hazardous to my family as well as myself and is another reason to remain anonymous. If anyone does not believe me then I understand why. They would prefer to believe I am a liar or something they dislike as it makes it easier for them to maintain their antagonism against me instead of believing I might actually be someone they respect.
Whether they believe or not is really irrelevant, and now that I think about it, in light of the things I have just said here, it is probably better if everyone believes I am some kind of psychotic wannabe who makes this stuff up for some reason to fool people.
So anyway peder I appreciate your courage and honesty. There is too little of that not only on forum, but everywhere.

chiangmaifalcon said:

It is perhaps difficult for people in the normal world to believe that people such as myself do exist in the real world, not just in the novels they read.

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Please, stop embarrasing yourself like this.

chiangmaifalcon said:

Whether they believe or not is really irrelevant, .

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I don't, and you're right. So it begs the question as to why you mention it repeatedly.

chiangmaifalcon said:

it is probably better if everyone believes I am some kind of psychotic wannabe who makes this stuff up for some reason to fool people.
.

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Very well then.

Hugh it is obvious what the problem is with you, whoever you are. You are suffering some feeling of inadequacy, based on your inability to not only do much of anything yourself, but you are unable to imagine that other people do. I am not embarassed personally. You have led a sheltered life Hugh. You are a fan of fantasy books, I believe, looking at your bizarre avatar photo. Fantasy is okay, but there is also a real world. I am not a psychologist, but I showed this thread to a guy who is, and he is the one who tells me that the problem is in real life you probably are yourself truly a wannabe.

chiangmaifalcon said:

Yes this is sarcasm, which apparently I must point out as people are confused about this.
Seriously, there are some mature, intelligent people on this forum, and I enjoy communicating with you also.

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:lol: Well I'm glad you're finally being serious.

And what did you do to forum, anyway??? I used to get bra ads in here, now I'm getting Millenium Hilton in Bangkok ads.

Hugh said:

And what did you do to forum, anyway??? I used to get bra ads in here, now I'm getting Millenium Hilton in Bangkok ads.

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:lol:

Keyword ads.

chiangmaifalcon said:

It would be very dangerous for me to divulge my true identity and whereabouts.

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But who asked you to? Forums are anonimous, if you've divulged more than you wanted to, it's really no one else's fault is it? Now, duplicate accounts are against forum rules (the ones you agreed with when you joined BAR) and that was why you had a temporary ban, not because you like to fight, live in Thailand or like Fox News. And you already know this.

chiangmaifalcon said:

This forum tells me why I left America. It is not the country it used to be. People can no longer disagree without hate. It is now a place in which people mouth off endlessly about freedom of speech, but try to crucify anyone who does not agree with them. They cry about freedom of religion, but despise anyone who believes in God. They cry about racism, but hate everyone who does not believe the same things they do. This is hypocrisy.

It will be the end of America and the west unless people learn to deal with each other without hate.

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chiangmaifalcon said:

I have seen black people holding dogfights in US.

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Do I really need to point out what's wrong here?

it is also against rules to call people scum, but some people do this without any of this banning. As far as what is wrong with last statement, nothing is wrong with it. It is a fact, not racism. The people doing the dogfights happened to be black people. Now I am sure there are Polish people, Greek people, homosexual people or whatever all holding dogfights, but I never saw them. There are black people who do not fight dogs. There are people who fight dogs who are not black. The ones I happen to see were black people, and it happened twice. If this offends your sensibilities, that is your problem. Do you want truth, or don't you? make up your mind. No doubt you are one of those types who are weepy about profiling. Now watch, this will cause another outbreak of crap.
As far as me giving out too much information, you are right. This was my fault. That will teach me to be honest. I will be more careful in the future, handjive.

Chiangmaifalcon,

I see that the thread is picking up again, with people at least speaking to you as if you are a person, although in the rather brusque way of much Internet conversation.

I would add only a few thoughts, constructive and friendly I hope.

You mention a desire for anonymity. In my experience with the Internet (since 2004) anonymity is hard to preserve against determined people.

I have been in discussions on many book forums during the past seven years, with different names on each forum in order to try to preserve some low-level degree of personal security. Nevertheless, a few years ago, one member took the time to look at my postings and track down my actual street address from general conversational remarks I had posted here and there while being in firendly conversation with other fourm members. That was a little surprising to me, so now I am more careful in what I say.

I also used a much more unique name during earlier days, and was surprised at what I found when I googled my own logon name. I suggest that as a sobering exercise for anyone. You may be more famous that you thought.

Finally, during my time online I have noticed an enormous number of abrasive people. The NYT forum on International Affairs, for example, used to be almost exclusively devoted to name calling, especially in response to frequent comments on the Middle East. However, abrasiveness even makes its way into book discussions from time to time. I have noticed that some people are motivated to spreading their nastiness across forum boundaries; they can be difficult to leave behind.

So, if anonymity is truly what a person seeks, the short story is that the Internet is the wrong place to be; and speaking even generally about aspects of one's personal life is also the wrong thing to do, even if it seems the friendly thing to do. Having a colorful but unique logon name doesn't help either.

I wish you, and others, many happy days in your forum experiences
May some of this be of some help.
Sincerely,
Peder

[Added in edit: Oops, CMF, I see that I have cross-posted with you, and that some of this message is now redundant. But at least I can wish you a happy day again.
Cheers
]

chiangmaifalcon said:

it is also against rules to call people scum, but some people do this without any of this banning. As far as what is wrong with last statement, nothing is wrong with it. It is a fact, not racism. The people doing the dogfights happened to be black people. Now I am sure there are Polish people, Greek people, homosexual people or whatever all holding dogfights, but I never saw them. There are black people who do not fight dogs. There are people who fight dogs who are not black. The ones I happen to see were black people, and it happened twice. If this offends your sensibilities, that is your problem. Do you want truth, or don't you? make up your mind. No doubt you are one of those types who are weepy about profiling. Now watch, this will cause another outbreak of crap.
As far as me giving out too much information, you are right. This was my fault. That will teach me to be honest. I will be more careful in the future, handjive.

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No, you didn't offend my sensibilities, I just failed to see the relevance of indicating the race of the people you saw holding dogfights in the US...

And what exactly is the weepy about profiling type?

Disemboweled said Thai people did dogfights in Thailand. Or at least he said there were dogfights There. Maybe not Thai people. I don't know. If I said some white guys were dogfighting, no one would care. If I had seen some white guys were dogfighting, I would have said some white guys were dogfighting. As for profiling, everyone knows what profiling is, or so I thought. If not, just watch Fox news, and they will tell you all about it.

chiangmaifalcon said:

Disemboweled said Thai people did dogfights in Thailand. Or at least he said there were dogfights There. Maybe not Thai people. I don't know. If I said some white guys were dogfighting, no one would care. If I had seen some white guys were dogfighting, I would have said some white guys were dogfighting.

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Again, I don't see the relevance of pointing out the race of the dogfighting people. Unless you were describing them to the police, which is not the case.

chiangmaifalcon said:

As for profiling, everyone knows what profiling is, or so I thought. If not, just watch Fox news, and they will tell you all about it.

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I know what profiling is. But you seem to be certain I am the weepy about profiling type

chiangmaifalcon said:

No doubt you are one of those types who are weepy about profiling.

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and since I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm simply asking for clarification so I can tell you if I am that type or not.

The problem was one and it escalated,CMF had two accounts and tried to treat us like idiots by adamantly denying the fact.Posting under both accounts.

To bother or spend the time and explain the same thing over and over is time consuming.

Living more does not make you any better,or any smarter or any more understanding,one human being can go through things,serious things in a year and someone else can live a whole lifetime and not have been through anything as severe.

It's the net,if you don't want things known,don't post them.

That is the bottom line.

Landslide said:

Do I really need to point out what's wrong here?

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Should "black people" have been capitalized? :innocent:

As Rodney King would say "can't we all get along?". It's a crying shame that this place use to be a nice place to talk about books but we're getting un-neccesary drama. I'm for one wish the mods would lock this and let's move on. It seems to me like everybody added their two cents and I've done mine so let's move on. Big props to Peder for being the only one who is having a civil conversation in this whole matter.

Is closing the thread going to solve things?

Libra said:

Is closing the thread going to solve things?

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I doubt it.Considering this is the second thread made on the subject.If the poster really wanted to just talk they wouldn't let their emotions get out of control from people disagreeing with them. And would just carry on posting like a normal person.

Could ban, could close thread.....but how long will the silence last...

chiangmaifalcon said:

it is also against rules to call people scum, but some people do this without any of this banning. As far as what is wrong with last statement, nothing is wrong with it. It is a fact, not racism. The people doing the dogfights happened to be black people. Now I am sure there are Polish people, Greek people, homosexual people or whatever all holding dogfights, but I never saw them. There are black people who do not fight dogs. There are people who fight dogs who are not black. The ones I happen to see were black people, and it happened twice. If this offends your sensibilities, that is your problem. Do you want truth, or don't you? make up your mind. No doubt you are one of those types who are weepy about profiling. Now watch, this will cause another outbreak of crap.
As far as me giving out too much information, you are right. This was my fault. That will teach me to be honest. I will be more careful in the future, handjive.

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That would have been me. I was being as kind as I could possibly muster myself to be at that moment.
Continuing on the topic of name-calling: calling Disenthral "disemboweled" isn't exactly civilized either, is it? This seems to me to be a case of pots and kettles.

Tai_Mai_Shu said:

As Rodney King would say "can't we all get along?". It's a crying shame that this place use to be a nice place to talk about books but we're getting un-neccesary drama. I'm for one wish the mods would lock this and let's move on.

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I understand your frustration, but I'd say this board is still a nice place for book discussion. There's really only one or two crazy threads here (as far as I know).